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weight loss

Yesterday was the last day of the Whole30. It was a really good experience. I am so glad I did this with my gym. I tried to do a Whole30 on my own a few months ago, and I ended up quitting after about 5 days. It was really great having that support system from all the other people doing it at the same time.

I cooked a lot of food this month. I made sweet potatoes for the first time ever. They are probably one of my favorite things to eat now. I will definitely continue eating paleo after the end of this. I’m in the reintroduction phase now. Today, I added dairy in the form of heavy cream with my tea, a small glass of milk with my lunch, and some yogurt with fruit after dinner. I have kept a close watch on how my body reacts to these things today and will continue to do so for the next two days. After that, I’ll add in other things that I think I may want to eat occasionally like rice, soy, and beer.

Overall, I would definitely recommend doing this to anyone who wants to have a better relationship with food. It really makes you think about your food choices and your cravings. You really learn what your triggers are. In addition to that, there are a lot of other health benefits that you could experience. I talked about some of the things I noticed that have improved due to eating better. (My experience with the Whole30)

In addition to the health benefits I experienced, I made a separate post about my weight loss/fat loss and muscle gain. I wanted to keep these separate because I didn’t want to take away from all the benefits I saw just in case there wasn’t a change in body composition. (Photos and measurements post-Whole30)

And last, but not least, we did a workout before we started the Whole30. Today, we repeated that workout so that we could see how our performance improved. I blew my time out of the water. I was really happy about this. In addition to that, I hit 5 PRs during the Whole30. (Test workout)

I really hope I don’t fall too far off the bandwagon now that I can eat whatever I want again. I saw such great results. I hope to keep moving in the right direction.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always considered myself overweight. I was always a little “chubby.”

My obsession with attaining a certain number on the scale didn’t start until I joined the Marine Corps though. One of the first things that happens when you talk to a recruiter is they pull a scale out and weigh you. In my case, I was 7 or 8 pounds over my max allowed for me height. This should have been okay since I had a few months before I’d be heading out to boot camp. I could easily lose that weight with a bit of exercise and eating. (Note: I ate atrociously as a child/teenager).

However, one day, I was at home playing on my computer, and the phone rang. It was my recruiter. He asked me if I wanted to leave in two days. I wasn’t doing anything, and I wanted to get out of my house. I jumped on the opportunity. I was still overweight though. For the next two days, I ate next to nothing and sipped on water to “quench” my thirst. My recruiter took me to the gym to exercise (i.e. do lots of cardio) and sit in the sauna. I remember wearing plastic bags underneath sweat pants and shirts to lose as much water as possible. At the time, I didn’t know any better. I just did whatever my recruiter said. I managed to squeak by for my weigh-in at MEPS.

For the next five years, I struggled with the number that appeared on the scale. For every weigh-in, I stressed about what the number would be. In the Marine Corps, there were harsh repercussions to being even a pound or two over your max weight. If you were over, they would then pull out a tape measure and measure the circumference of your neck, waist, and hips if you were female, and your neck and waist if you were male. These measurements, along with your height, were plugged into a formula, and out popped your body fat percentage. Anyone who had to go through these knows that they are horribly inaccurate, especially for females who have what would be called “child-bearing hips.” For me, if I had to get tape measured, there was no hope of passing.

I would do everything in my power to make weight. I would not eat, drink fluids (or drink very little), and exercise for the days leading up to a weigh-in, sometimes even a week before depending on how far away I was from making weight. Despite my efforts, I’d sometimes be over my weight. I got punished by having to do two PTs a day, one in the morning with the “fat bodies” and then again in the afternoon with my platoon. I’d get talked to about going on calorie restricted diets. I’d get yelled at, made to feel ashamed because I was two pounds overweight. I took supplements that were supposed to burn fat. I obsessed. It had a huge psychological impact on my sense of self worth.

In the years after I got out of the Marine Corps, it still affected me. I still obsessed about my weight. I went up to 160 pounds and freaked out. I fluctuated a bit, but then finally ended up settling at around 145 pounds. This was an okay weight for me; it was only 3 pounds over my max as if I were still in the Marine Corps.

Then, I began taking testosterone. Within three months, I gained 15-20 pounds. But, this didn’t have the same psychological effect it would have had in the past. I saw my body composition change. As I put on more weight, I saw my body become more muscular. But even then, I still wished I could weigh less, but not because I wanted the number to go down, but because I wanted to lose the fat that I had before I started transitioning.

I think testosterone has broken a lot of the negative associations I’ve had with the number that appears on my scale, but I’d like to break away from relying on my scale as a measure of self-worth at all. It still nags at me from time to time. Last weekend, Stephanie from stupideasypaleo.com came to my gym and talked about nutrition. Later that night, she posted an article about how to love yourself instantly (which basically involves throwing out your scale). I’ve known for a long time that the number I see on the scale doesn’t reflect anything about my health, but I’ve never been able to take that step of throwing out my scale.

Starting tomorrow, I will begin the Whole30 challenge. I measured my weight this morning, and I will measure my weight again at the end of the challenge. I’m hoping by doing this, I will finally be able to convince myself that it reflects nothing about how I look or feel and especially not about my value as a person.

I started a blog on Tumblr to kind of document my Whole30 experience to not flood this blog with complaining about how I want to eat a certain food but can’t, etc. Please check it out if you get a chance!